WE’RE BACK – Letter to 21WIRE Readers

A NARRATIVE IN TATTERS: Propaganda poster for the UK-funded White Helmets, the Free Syrian Police and Aleppo Councils (Photo: Patrick Henningsen, May 2017, East Aleppo, Syria)

Dear Readers,

Glad to have you back. Firstly, we would like to apologise for being offline most of last week. We’ve been working hard behind the scenes to get back online.

On Tuesday April 10th, 2018 at approximately 2pm EST, 21stCenturyWire.com sustained a heavy Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) cyber attack and were only able to restore our systems yesterday afternoon. We were not the only ones. Other leading alternative news websites were also hit at this exact time, including South Front, Hands Off Syria (Australia-based antiwar organisation), Fort-Russ, Syria News and others – each covering the situation in Syria closely and truthfully. Based on the number of page requests or ‘bots’ that were hitting us each hour, this seemed similar to what happened to Craig Murray’s blog two weeks prior. In addition to the online attacks on alternative media outlets, Facebook was blocking similar content on their platform – including South Front who appealed and were eventually reinstated. Based on these facts, we believe that it’s not “highly likely” but 100% certain that the party(s) attacking us and other similar platforms did so on behalf of a state actor – and in the interests of prosecuting another illegal war by way of deception based on a false pretext. The entire false case for this latest US, UK and French missile strike relied on spurious claims made by US-funded ‘opposition’ group called the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), and more importantly – by videos produced and uploaded by the White Helmets, a pseudo NGO funded mainly by the UK government, as well as millions from US and EU member states, and who operate exclusively in terror-held areas of Syria. Their raison d’etre is precisely what took place this week – to manufacture a fabricate case for western military intervention in Syria. On this basis, we believe that it was no coincidence that this website, 21stCenturyWire.com, was attacked in part because we happen to house the largest White Helmets research archive on the web, thanks to the hard work of our associate editor Vanessa Beeley currently reporting from on the ground in Syria – bravely working to tell the truth not only about this week’s events, but also about the last seven years of the West’s dirty war on Syria. In 2015, we blew open the White Helmets story and proceeded to keep digging through their rubble of lies to get a true picture of what this western construct was all about. Many mainstream bodies were not happy about our coverage, including a supposed ‘free press’ organisation, Reporters Without Borders who tried to block Vanessa’s testimony at the Swiss Press Club this past fall. The establishment’s campaign continued, with defamatory and sloppy hit-pieces by leading mainstream media publications like the The Guardian and Rupert Murdoch’s The Times and various other media outlets – all designed to harass, intimidate and silence us, or anyone who dares to challenge the official western corporate narrative on the White Helmets and Syria. This week the world saw the White Helmets in all their glory – serving the necessary propaganda to create a false pretext for another regime change war in the Middle East. What we are witnessing here is truly a criminal enterprise, made possible by western governments, their Gulf and NATO allies and their loyal battalions of proxy militants and terrorists, paid for by our public money and oil profits from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others. And they have resources to prosecute war on many fronts including the information sphere, where they wage their war on truth from the fortified ivory towers of the mainstream media and the Silicon Valley, and in the cyber sphere through various government programs attempting to mute, shut down and censor in the name of ‘national security’ or worse, claiming that they are somehow ‘combating fake news’ by suppressing the truth. And yet, despite all this, we found their Achilles heel, hiding in plain sight.

For those of you who stepped-in to help us this week – thank you very much. Without your support we might still be offline right now.Those of you who know us and have been kind enough to support us and our work our this last year – we really appreciate your help. Thanks also to our technical experts and IT contractors who worked hard on our behalf this week, with a lot time, effort and money spent. As we’re a small and independent operation, our resources are limited and we’ll need your continued help and support going forward.

I think this week shows more than anything how a small, independent and dedicated group of people, supported by an even bigger group of wonderful individuals – can make a difference.